Igor—standing a few meters away from the chaos, looks deep into the depths of my soul, like he’s searching for some answers there.
“Your father got your fiancée pregnant, Igor,” says Siguard. “He kept the truth from you for years. What other truths could he be hiding?”
Igor keeps watching me, something shifting in his gaze.
“I’m not sure,” he says to Siguard. “But I’d like to find out before I kill himmyself.”
Igor steps into action, swooping the knife from Niko and running over to where Valerian is laid.
A scream rips apart my throat. I can’t watch, but the man holding me down is making me.
A loud squelching sound fills the air as Igor shoves his knife into warm, gooey flesh. I look up, tears concealing my vision, and see Siguard drop dead to the ground.
I gasp.
I wasn’t expecting this, and neither was Siguard, still registering the knife in his chest as he goes down. His hand hovers over theblade as he attempts to remove it, but all of the strength has gone from his body.
The politician falls to the floor, blood gushing from his chest, a puddle of it quickly forming on the ground.
The shocking turn of events sends the other masked men into disarray, giving Valerian and Nikolai the perfect opportunity to take care of the rest of them.
Blood fills my entire vision, the sounds of ripping flesh cutting through the wind as Valerian, Niko and Igor finish off the rest of the men.
It’s over in the space of a few minutes. The man holding onto me is the last one to join his friends in the afterlife.
I suck in a deep breath when his body flops to the floor, like I’ve been underwater this entire time.
Valerian scrambles to his feet, barreling my way. He scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder, fireman-carrying me away from the edge. My hands grapple with his shoulders, struggling for purchase as I try to hold on.
But I realize I don’t need to anymore.
And that is honestly a very terrifying thought, putting your trust entirely in another person.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
That’s the problem. He thinks he has everything under control, but he loses the control the second things get real.
Siguard was a significant person in Valerian’s life, taking everything away from him when he was just a boy, birthing a monster as a result.
Can things return to how they were before Siguard? Valerian lost his father and buried the past to become something new. And sometimes, old versions of ourselves are so far buried, they’re unsalvageable.
Siguard is dead, but Valerian will never be the same person he was before, the one capable of showing vulnerability.
It’s the reason he lost touch with his son.
I sigh, collapsing into Valerian as he brings me back inside, Igor and Niko following behind.
He kept truths from his son to protect him, and that makes him a brilliant father. But the anger he feels toward the world will never fade. Siguard already left his mark.
Is it right to introduce a new child into Valerian’s life? Things go from zero to one hundred with him, everything calm one day, sour the next. Life is unpredictable. Igor and Valerian almost lost their lives. You can’t put an innocent child through that, introducing your child to the world, allowing them to get attached, just for them to witness everything fall one day.
The cycle will begin anew, and before I know it, I’ll be dealing with the pain all over again.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned while staying with Valerian, it’s that the Bratva doesn’t promise tomorrow. How the fuck are you supposed to raise a child after seeing all of this? Enemies are constantly lurking. One day, it could be my child on the edge of this building. Its safety is my responsibility, and sacrifices have to be made to ensure that sometimes.
Valerian makes an excellent father—I see now how protective he’s always been over Igor. But is that enough? Valerian and Iwon’t be playing happy families forever. Someone will lose their life. Hearts will be torn forever. Nothing ever mends. You just find ways to adjust to the hurt.
Valerian sets me down when we make it into the elevator. Blood is sprinkled all over his face, his eyes bloodshot, surrounded by deep shadows as we ride down in silence to the ground floor.